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Wijnaldum: It was my fault

Gini Wijnaldum has accepted blame for the first goal we conceded against Leicester City last night.

The summer signing gave the ball away needlessly centrally, which enabled Danny Drinkwater to feed Jamie Vardy through on goal.

The Englishman scored again to put the Foxes 3-0 up at the King Power, before Coutinho grabbed a consolation goal late on.

“We knew beforehand that it was going to be tough, especially in the first couple of minutes, but we didn’t adapt well in the game,” the Dutchman told the official website.

“They were playing really hard in the beginning; you could see it in the first couple of minutes when they made the tackle on Sadio – that was a sign that it was going to be a really difficult game. We didn’t adapt well in the situation, and then we went behind 1-0 with a mistake from me. Then we were not in the game.

“[In the] second half, we tried to do it differently, [but] we conceded another goal. We scored a goal, but at the end it wasn’t good enough from our side. Of course, it’s difficult, and it’s a hard one, especially with the way we lost the game. It’s really sad. The manager [had] told us already at the beginning of the week, and again when [Claudio] Ranieri [left], that it was going to be a really difficult game.

“They want to show that they are a good team and they wanted to fight to beat us. We were not ready at the beginning of the game.”

The performance, or lack of, from Wijnaldum, was all the more frustrating considering he was so excellent a fortnight ago against Spurs.

The 26-year-old put in an all-action, hungry performance which showed energy and skill in equal measure – helping us to a 2-0 victory over our top four rivals.

Both of those traits were nowhere to be seen against the Premier League champions last night, although in fairness, it’s not like his team-mates turned up either.

You could argue that Emre Can actually did ok, and that Coutinho wanted it in the second, but in truth, it was too late by this point.

With Manchester United in brilliant form, many Reds are predicting a sixth placed finish, all the more painful considering we were fighting for the title just two months ago.